there's nothing new under the sun
by alinaandalion
Summary: Things aren't exactly perfect, but they're good enough for right now.


Nate starts touching her after San Lorenzo.

It's after the job on the mountain (and that kiss that _wasn't_ necessary for the con), and he's not even thinking about it.

Sophie is standing in front of the screens, examining the blueprints for the house where this murder mystery is going to happen. Nate just nudges her hip to get her to slide over.

"You could have just asked," she says quietly as Eliot moves around in the kitchen.

Nate starts and rubs the back of his neck, realizing his mistake. "Yeah, I could have."

He just catches the lift of one of her eyebrows before she points something out in the lower left corner of the screen.

* * *

Her hand is warm in his as they revolve in a small circle, his fingers sliding along her waist over the thick fabric of her costume.

"See Beck yet?" Nate asks.

"If you're asking me, then I would say that it would be easier to find him if we were looking for him," Sophie replies with a slight smile.

"Well, we can stop."

"After this song."

She shifts a little closer to him, her hips swaying with the music, and he grins.

* * *

Sophie has to reach over him for a file, and as she slips it out from under his arm, her fingers brush the inside of his wrist. Nate looks up at her, startled, but she already has the papers spread in front of her.

"You could have asked for it," he says finally as he picks up the remote and flips through some photos of their mark.

"True. I could have."

She glances at him, her eyes creasing at the corners with the hint of a smile; he shakes his head and picks up the bottle of bourbon in between them, pouring a finger of it into a glass and setting it beside her hand, his fingers ghosting past her palm.

The night grows longer as they keep working in the dim light, and his hand falls to her knee at some point. She looks at him steadily when he squeezes his fingers against her bare skin, but she doesn't say anything.

* * *

After he asks her out to dinner as colleagues, he can't stop touching her.

His fingers press at the small of her back as he guides her into a taxi; his shoulder brushes against hers at every left turn of the drive to the restaurant; his right foot keeps drifting underneath the table until it is pressed toe-to-toe with hers.

He stops caring so much, though, when they get past their third drinks. On their fifth round, Sophie downs her whiskey faster than him and reaches across the table for his glass. He wraps his hand around her wrist and plucks the glass out of her reach, drinks it all down without letting her go.

In the taxi on the way back to his place, Nate keeps a hand on the top of her thigh, feels the heat of her body radiating through her clothes.

He kisses her the second they make it into his apartment, pushes her against the door as it closes and slants his mouth over hers, a hand twisting in her hair. There's a moment when he thinks she might push him away, her hands pressing against his chest, but then she arches into him, as though this is nothing new.

As he slips his hands underneath her shirt, he licks his way into her mouth, over her teeth, against the roof of her mouth, and she moans, the sound vibrating through both of them.

She breaks away then, her lips slightly swollen, and she says, "So this is what you've been doing the past few weeks?"

"As if you haven't been doing the exact same thing," he replies as he presses his mouth against her neck.

"I know how to take a hint." Her fingers undo his belt buckle, unzip his pants.

"I thought you told me once that I'm not exactly subtle," he murmurs.

He manages to get a hand into her pants, and he presses his palm fully against her, feels the dampness between her legs, and she groans, rocks her hips into him.

"You're not." He slips a finger inside her and passes his thumb once over her clit. She gasps and manages to say, "Your hints are more like anvils."

She does push him back then and bends down to take off her boots. He's impatient, though, and as he pulls her away from the door and further into his apartment, kissing her again and again, they stumble and fall to the floor.

"This'll do," Nate groans as Sophie rolls on top of him.

He unclasps her bra underneath her shirt, flings it to one side after she pulls free of the straps. Her jeans are more of a struggle, and at one point, they burst into laughter, Sophie sprawled halfway across his chest, her face buried against his shoulder.

They manage, though, and when she settles on top of him again, the air changes, still and heavy. Sophie makes the first move. She sinks onto him slowly, breathing deeply after, her back bowing as he wraps a hand around the back of her neck, his thumb brushing her pulse point.

He watches her as she moves above him, her eyes going almost black. He's too close for this to last very long, so he presses his thumb to her clit, rubbing in soft circles. He grips her hip with tight fingers as her movements grow frantic and she braces herself against his chest, her nails digging in through the fabric of his shirt.

One more swipe of his thumb against her clit pushes Sophie over the edge, and a cry stutters its way past her lips as Nate pulls her down to him. She finds his neck with her teeth, and when she bites down, he comes with a groan.

He holds her there for a long time, until his eyes blur with exhaustion and Sophie murmurs something too softly for his ears to catch.

* * *

It's morning when Nate starts awake at the sound of Sophie's ringing cell phone. He blinks, disoriented, because this is definitely not his bed, not his sheets, as Sophie stirs beside him and snatches up the phone.

Sophie answers the phone, her voice quiet and raspy with sleep, and he remembers coming back with her to her apartment the night before. Now he turns his attention to trailing his mouth lazily along the bare skin of her back, snaking his fingers around her body to brush against the undersides of her breasts.

She glares at him and shifts uncomfortably as she says into the phone, "I don't know where Nate is, Hardison. Where are you right now?"

"Must have forgotten my phone at the bar," Nate murmurs as he bites down gently where her neck slopes into her shoulder.

"Okay, e-mail the information you have, and I'll be over in about an hour." Sophie throws the phone to one side and cranes her neck so she can glare at Nate. "Cora has your phone. And Hardison stayed at your place last night because he was waiting for you to come back."

"Is he still there?"

"What do you think?"

"What's so important that he couldn't wait to tell me about it today?" Nate asks as he cups her breasts in his hands, rolls a nipple through his fingers.

She gasps and slaps his hands away, reaching over to grab her phone. "Hardison e-mailed it to me."

Nate watches the news footage over Sophie's shoulder, frowning at the sight of Jana West re-instated at Verd Agra. When Sophie shuts the clip off, he pulls her closer, his hands falling to her hips and tracing over the line of bone he can just feel underneath her skin.

"I have to shower and get dressed," she murmurs even as she turns into him, her hands pressing between his shoulder blades, her legs moving to straddle his.

He tangles a hand in her hair and kisses her slowly, not even caring that they haven't bothered with brushing their teeth yet, groaning when she pulls back, slips off the bed. She shakes her head and grabs up her bathrobe.

"You need to go home and take a shower, too," she says with a small laugh, tying her robe closed then reaching over to tousle his wild curls.

"And what am I supposed to do when Hardison notices I'm wearing the same thing as yesterday?"

"Let him think you're coming back from a one-night stand with some girl you picked up last night. Make it awkward."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Don't worry, darling. It shouldn't be too difficult," she says with a smirk as she tosses his clothes at him. "I'll see you in a little while."

She disappears into her bathroom while he's pulling on his shirt, so once he hears the running water in her shower, he lets himself out and starts working on a story to tell the others in case they ask about the previous night.

* * *

No one asks, but things are definitely awkward for a few days.

Hardison takes a full week to start making eye contact with Nate again.

* * *

Now that things have changed, now that he wakes up with Sophie beside him more mornings than he doesn't, he starts learning things about her.

It's mostly unimportant things, like how she refuses to get dressed until she's had at least one cup of tea or how her favorite way to wake up is with his fingers between her legs and his mouth pressing gently against her neck.

But it _feels _important because he realizes now that all these things, they are a part of who she really is. This is the real woman behind all the masks and fake names, and it makes every discovery meaningful, gets him closer to the part of her self that she's kept locked away for years.

They talk now, about work, about their shared pasts, but at no point do they ever talk about feelings or what their relationship is morphing into.

It's easier that way, not as messy, but that doesn't stop him from wondering how she feels about him, doesn't keep him from looking at her and thinking _maybe_.

This is good enough for now.

* * *

"Are we really doing this?" Nate asks quietly as Sophie curls into his side, one of her legs thrown over his.

She looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. "We've been doing _this_ for a few months now, Nate. Are you trying to say you want out?"

"No, that's not it. It's just…" He shakes his head, looking for words that won't mess up what they do have because it's complicated enough without being something _more._ "Are you happy?"

"Yes," she says slowly. Her eyes linger on his face, though, searching, and she asks, "But are you happy?"

"Of course." The words come out before he even thinks about it, but he doesn't regret them.

She smiles then, her face lighting up, and she's so achingly beautiful that he wants her again. He reaches up, pulls her into him so he can kiss her, and she follows.


End file.
